Harry B. Miller III, A.C.E. Discovers Continuum Complete

Harry B. Miller III, A.C.E. is a picture and sound editor who works in the feature film and television business. He grew up in Lexington, Kentucky and attended Boston University and the University of Kentucky where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts. In 1978, he attended the University of Southern California (USC) Cinema School where he earned a Master of Fine Arts in Film Production. He has since worked in the Southern California film business. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the American Cinema Editors and contributes to the ACE website and Tech Blog.

Harry B. Miller III, A.C.E.

Although Boris Continuum Complete AVX (BCC AVX) was included with his Avid Media Composer software for years, Miller only dabbled with the various effects - until he discovered PixelChooser, the region and channel-based masking system that is built into BCC AVX filters.

"It is all fine to have a palette of visual effects plug-ins to help tell your story. Avid comes with a good variety and there are many third-party AVX effects," commented Miller. "But what has elevated BCC AVX in my eyes is the integrated PixelChooser technology. PixelChooser allows you to draw simple or complex shapes within each BCC effect and to apply the effect within or outside of the shape. And not just a single shape, but multiple shapes. PixelChooser enables the editor to fine-tune the visuals of a movie enormously. It is like having Avid's AniMatte™ feature built in to each BCC plug-in."

Drawing Shape with PixelChooser

Glow Applied to PixelChooser-selected Region

Before and After Images

After discovering PixelChooser, Miller dug into the BCC AVX documentation, and found several more gems. He finds the Generator plug-ins really helpful; some of his work involves adding snow, clouds, fire, sparks, or rain to a shot. Other favorites include:

BCC Correct Selected. Miller uses this filter for secondary color correction - to affect one small range of colors in an image. Secondary color correction is how an image can look black and white with only a red rose showing color.

BCC Optical Flow to speed change a shot, with smoothing like FluidMotion™.

BCC Optical Stabilizer for stabilization of a handheld shot.

BCC Lens Flare for optical lens flares or for use as a transition.

BCC Pan and Zoom for panning and zooming in a shot.

Some of Miller's recent credits which were aided by BCC AVX include Warehouse 13 and Caprica.

"On Caprica, I used many BCC effects - including Glows, Damaged TV, LED, and Blurs - to help tell the story," noted Miller. "Based on this experience, I recommended adding Boris Continuum Complete FxPlug to our Apple Final Cut Pro systems on Warehouse 13. Inside FCP, the Chroma Key and Matte Choker filters have been particularly valuable."

Concludes Miller, "The tide of technology keeps rising. Some editors have the notion that knowing about advanced tools is too difficult. I look upon it as job security. The more I know and am able to do and do well, the less likely my job is going to disappear. BCC AVX is an extremely useful collection of visual effects and PixelChooser was a true revelation. I am thrilled to have 'discovered' this valuable set of tools."

Portions of this article were originally published in CinemaEditor Magazine.